Okay guys, this week I had the chance to spend my 30 minutes with a preproduction HTC Hermes which surfaced first time, unofficially, during the 3GSM Congress in Barcelona as i-mate JasJam and which was officially announced later during the CeBIT in Hannover by T-Mobile Germany as MDA Vario II.

The HTC Hermes is a Windows Mobile 5.0 based Pocket PC Phone Edition and similar to the HTC Wizard since both are featuring a slide-out keyboard and are similar sized. However, the Hermes will be a UMTS device with HSDPA support and therefore it's also the follower of the HTC Universal, the first UMTS Pocket PC Phone Edition device.
It's way too early for a review since the unit I got my hands on was a preproduction but I had it long enough for some interesting photos:

Well that's cool. E-Plus, the first German GPRS and UMTS operator who introduced a UMTS flat in Germany fall last year today announced another flat GPRS and UMTS option to be available from 1st of April (and no, it's not an April fool at all): For 19,95 Euro you get 150 MB inclusive volume to be used over GPRS and UMTS. Every MB above will costs you around 33 Cent but never more than 69,95 Euro! That's a fair deal for both parties I think and the new "Online Flat 150" is designed for newbies.
Heavy surfer can still select the Online Flat which gives you for 39,95 an "all you can eat" option without port blocking, etc.

As Paul over at MoDaCo posted, O2 UK is preparing to launch their version of the HTC Tornado in the same ID as used by i-mate as the SP5 and Qtek 8310 as "Xda IQ".
Interesting, since the same device was announced by O2 Asia as "O2 Orion" end of last year but was never released there.

Nevertheless, Paul got the word that the Xda IQ, which is set to ship with AKU2 already installed, will be offered as part of a forthcoming Push E-Mail package and will also includes W-LAN, unlike the German Tornado version called Xda Phone (again, three names for the same device from O2).

It took years that it happened but finally AvantGo released a public Beta client of an AvantGo browser for Windows Mobile Smartphones.
According to the download page, it supports Windows Mobile 2003 Smartphones or above but no word about the supported screen resolutions (176x220 vs. 240x320).

Anyway, if you are a Smartphone user and AvantGo user, you can get the Beta free of charge now from the downloads section, after you've logged into your account:

The Bluetooth Special Interest Group (basically the "owner" of the Bluetooth standard) yesterday announced its selection of the WiMedia Alliance multiband orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (MB-OFDM) version of ultra-wideband (UWB) for integration with current Bluetooth wireless technology, thus taking the next step in its plan to create a version of the globally popular Bluetooth wireless technology with a high speed/high data rate option.
This new version of Bluetooth technology should meet the high-speed demands of synchronizing and transferring large amounts of data as well as enabling high quality video and audio applications for portable devices, multi-media projectors and television sets. At the same time, Bluetooth technology will continue catering to the needs of very low power applications such as mice, keyboards and mono headsets, enabling devices to select the most appropriate physical radio for the application requirements, thereby offering the best of both worlds.

Barablu, the free calls community, yesterday announced a strong customer demand for its newly launched free calls and text Mobile-to-Mobile (Wi-Fi enabled) service, which has spread to 96 countries in just two months. The company believes that the growth is driven by the global growth of Wi-Fi enabled mobiles, smartphone devices and the customer demand for free services. With the Internet voice going mobile, usage prices are falling and even free, revolutionizing the current high pricing structures of global mobile operators.

Barablu is the first company in the world to offer a free calls and text Mobile-to-Mobile (Wi-Fi enabled) service for its users. The service uses Wi-Fi networks and is currently available on four types of (mobile) devices:

As MSMobileNews.com reports, Orange removed the MSN Messenger client from its latest Windows Mobile Pocket PC Phone Edition, the Orange M600 (aka HTC Prophet) which is, if true, a bad decision at all but Orange isn't the first one who did it. Also T-Mobile made this mistake (partly) by removing some core-MSN Messenger functionalities in the initial ROM of the MDA Pro (HTC Universal) and also Vodafone Germany completely removed MSN Messenger from it's VPA compact II (HTC Wizard).
If the core application aka .EXE is removed from the ROM, also my previous tip doesn't helps anymore to get MSN Messenger back to your Start menu, to run it without running MSN Mobile.

I've written about the upcoming SlingPlayer Mobile for Windows Mobile devices back in December and finally Sling Media released the public beta of its SlingPlayer Mobile for Pocket PCs which is now available as an open beta for Slingbox customers. SlingPlayer Mobile gives Slingbox owners the most powerful option available in mobile television, combining their unique personal home TV experience with their mobile phones or PDAs.

Beginning April 26th, the retail SlingPlayer Mobile software will be available for US$ 29.99 and includes a free 30-day trial. Slingbox owners who purchase and register their Slingbox prior to April 26th will receive a free license for SlingPlayer Mobile. There are no monthly or recurring charges for the use of SlingPlayer Mobile.

Another ROM update for the M600 Pocket PC Phone Edition was recently released by E-TEN. ROM 0213 isn't based on AKU 2 but still based on AKU 1.1 and therefore isn't including the Microsoft Feature Pack for push E-Mail. Nevertheless, E-TEN already supports other parts of AKU 2 - the Bluetooth A2DP and AVRX profiles for wireless stereo streaming and remote control which is still part of the new ROM update.
In addition, E-TEN added a a new Skype speaker switch and native Skype support as announced earlier as well as a phone dialer skin manager, improved system performance, improved audio over Bluetooth functionalities and a new backup utility.

Today, i-mate released the long awaited ROM update for the i-mate SP5 and SP5m Windows Mobile Smartphone which is based on Microsoft's AKU 2 and therefore contains the MSFP (Microsoft Feature Pack which is the E-Mail push functionality with Exchange 2003 and SP2) but unfortunately not the A2DP Bluetooth stereo protocol yet as previewed earlier.

Nevertheless, the ROM update also contains other important fixes and feature updates and is available in several language pack versions.

SFR has recently released the v3 of visKeeper. visKeeper allows you to store all your data securely on your Pocket PC. The past versions of visKeeper impressed me because of their simplicity. visKeeper stored all data securely and easily without having a long feature list. But this is what some users have criticized. Everyone wants to secure a specific kind of data and that with a special kind of solution. Therefore the new version 3 was eagerly awaited. This test will show whether visKeeper could satisfy the different user needs while maintaining the simple handling.

visKeeper 3 is available in the versions for Pocket PC and PC. Version 2 was also available for the Palm platform but SFR have stopped the development for the Palm platform in Version 3 (More information on the website of SFR: http://www.sfr-software.de/cms/EN/palm/index.html).

Is this the answer to my desperate search for an integrated Bluetooth car kit and audio-solution? The
recently announced Sony MEX-BT5000 car audio head unit is designed for the truly mobile lifestyle. The first Sony head unit with Bluetooth wireless technology, it automatically links to any Bluetooth mobile phone and provides handsfree calls with crystal clear sound. Phone book data from the handset also appears on the BT5000's high-visibility screen, so you can make and receive calls during a journey without even taking your phone out of your pocket. Support for the Bluetooth OPP (Object Push Protocol) also allows the wireless transfer of up to fifty phone book contacts to the head unit itself. An integrated microphone in the unit picks up the user's voice and removes the need for any further wiring within the car, greatly simplifying installation. Stylishly minimal design and a full motion fluorescent (FL) display give the BT5000 a highly distinctive look very different to previous Sony head units.

Thanks to Bluetake, for a while now I'm using and testing its i-PHONO mini Bluetooth Stereo Headphone BT450Rx which combines a stylish design and reliable technology in the ideal mini size units.
Equipped with Bluetooth, the i-PHONO mini headphone provides a convenient wireless way to enjoy wireless music, using the A2DP Bluetooth profile and you can use the i-PHONO mini headphone to remote control the music playing functions of your Bluetooth device if it supports Bluetooth AVRC Bluetooth profile. Additionally, since it is a Bluetooth headset also, you can use it as your Bluetooth headset for your mobile phone.
Since the i-PHONO mini headphone supports concurrent Bluetooth headset and A2DP connections, it allows you to answer or make calls with the Bluetooth-enabled mobile phone while you are listening to music. Depending on the music source device, your music playback is either paused or muted. After you ended the call, the music will follow to be streamed again in few seconds.

Last but not least, the i-PHONO mini headphone can be used for VoIP calls with Internet Messenger services, such as Skype, MSN Messenger or Yahoo! Messenger if your PC or Notebook has a headset compliant Bluetooth adapter. Please note, that the Windows XP Service Pack 2 Bluetooth stack isn't supporting the headset Bluetooth profile.

Now, after I got the Bluetooth contacts sync between my car kit and my Windows Mobile devices fixed, I wish my car kit would also support the Bluetooth A2DP profile - as I dreamed about before already - and not because of music playback only but for another interesting reason.
Since the CeBIT, I'm using a pre-production Xda neo (thanks to O2 for the support) and Destinator 6 (thanks to Destinator Technologies for providing the Beta) and as good as Destinator 6 works, compared to all the previous versions and competitor products, Pocket PC navigation always has one serious problem, compared to an inbuilt car navigation system: the audio output is always too silent, especially if you listen your music "a little bit louder".

17.03.06 - It works - at least: During the last months, since I've tested the first AKU 1.1 devices with Hands Free Bluetooth profile and sync I had the problem that my Windows Mobile devices didn't sync well with my Parrot CK 3100, at least not if I had all my contacts on my devices but only if I had less then 100 there.
Pretty frustrating to see the sync-icon in the car kit all the time without finishing its job. Nevertheless, yesterday I was on Parrot's support site again to see if there is a new firmware available for the CK 3100 and since my last firmware update, and indeed Parrot already released two newer firmware versions with the following fixes and enhancements:

I had a couple of discussions about this topic during the CeBIT, especially when friends, partners and supporters of the::unwired saw that I have (daytimes) two devices with me: a Windows Mobile Smartphone and a Windows Mobile Pocket PC.
While I'm a big fan of Pocket PC (Phone Editions since 2001) since 19. April 2000, I hardly ever used my Pocket PC Phone Edition as my mobile phone but mostly as my (online) data device only - following Microsoft's previous categorization of a "data centric" device.
In addition, I always used a mobile phone / Smartphone (since fall 2002) which is daytimes my voice device and nighttimes my voice and data device (for E-Mail and web). I wonder if I'm alone or not and what's your favorite combination:

I still had problems to serve Apple Mac users the right site version and due to a bad configuration, Mac users were always redirected to the mobile version of the::unwired instead of getting the full featured desktop version.
However, this problem should be solved now, at least I hope so.
If you are not aware how the::unwired serves the pages, here we go with a small explanation:

One of my highest targets, since I've created the first Windows CE/Windows Mobile related web pages, was to serve both - desktop and mobile users the right page, doesn't matter how they access the::unwired (and all its forerunners). In the past, I either worked with sub-domains like mobile.xyz.net or directories like xyz.net/mobile/ to serve you the mobile version of the page you've requested. However, since the relaunch of the::unwired, I've changed the system to a style sheet based delivery mechanism so you don't have to take care about URLs, domains, etc anymore. Everything should works automatic which is even more important if other sites links to the::unwired.

If you own a Pocket PC and you are producing podcasts already - or you want to give it a try, AcroDesign's AudioBay Podcasting application for Windows Mobile Pocket PCs, which was released today, might be interesting for you. AudioBay provides everything needed to publish a podcast from a Pocket PC. Within a few minutes, users can record a podcast episode using the Pocket PC's built-in recorder and upload it to the Web over a wireless Internet connection for immediate access by the public.

Okay, the Samsung SGH-i320 Windows Mobile Smartphone BlackBerry "killer" appeared first at last month's 3GSM Congress in Barcelona and was shown there with
two working samples the first day. However, the second day, it disappeared from the Samsung stand and where the i320 was
showed the day before, Samsung placed two other Windows Mobile devices.
Everybody who was asked what happened with the i320 hadn't had anything to say, even if it was
officially announced through Samsung's press release. All I got was that I should wait for the CeBIT.

Destinator Technologies unveiled it's latest navigation software for Windows Mobile at this year's CeBIT: "Destinator 6". Destinator 6 is the latest in a long line of solid product releases, building on the award winning "Destinator PN", "ND" and "SP" software. Numerous enhancements make Destinator 6 faster and easier to use than ever. With more ingenious functions, features and a completely redesigned user interface, Destinator 6 delivers power and innovation that's accessible by all.

NewsGator Technologies, Inc. today announced that it has expanded its mobile portfolio with new RSS aggregators for Windows Mobile and J2ME-enabled devices. The new products accompany the NewsGator Mobile reader for HTML-enabled devices as part of the industry's most complete mobile RSS catalog. All three mobile products synchronize with the NewsGator family of products, anchored by NewsGator Online, the company's Web-based aggregator, allowing customers to read content and manage their subscriptions seamlessly from any device.

NewsGator recently acquired the Windows Mobile reader (formerly called SmartRead) and SmartFeed, a mobile podcatching application. Kevin Cawley, creator of the products, has joined the NewsGator team to oversee the company's mobile product development.

Beside the Vodafone VPA Compact s aka HTC Prophet Pocket PC Phone Edition, Vodafone also previews the HTC Star Trek Windows Mobile Smartphone, HTC's first clamshell Smartphone which was unveiled first time during the 3GSM Congress four weeks ago.
Vodafone hasn't announced a launch of the Star Trek yet and is showing it in the Qtek version only but in red, a Star Trek color I haven't seen so far:

At this week's CeBIT, Vodafone Germany is previewing the HTC Prophet (aka HTC Prophet) at its stand. The HTC Prophet, which Vodafone will call "Vodafone VPA Compact s", isn't anything new at all since it is the well known HTC Prophet with quad-band GSM and GPRS, 2 megapixel camera, Bluetooth 1.2, W-LAN b and g using a TI OMAP CPU.
Unlike over at the O2 stand, the VPA Compact s was still not branded and behind glass only:

During the CeBIT 2006, Tatung, another Taiwanese manufacture of Windows Mobile devices, unveiled its Tatung M1A, the follower of the Tatung M1 Windows Mobile Smartphone I've posted about during last month's 3GSM Congress in Barcelona.
However, unlike it was announced in Barcelona, the Tatung M1 will not be released anymore, due to the customer feedback Tatung got. Please keep in mind, Tatung is a pure ODM for Windows Mobile Smartphones, therefore we will never see devices, sold under the brand name Tatung but only under operators or resellers brand names.
Nevertheless, the M1A, the follower of the M1, got some important feature-updates which makes the device even better, and IMHO the M1 was a nice device already.

Do you remember my earlier posting from the 3GSM Congress last month, where the::unwired was the first showing you a new Gigabyte Pocket PC Phone Edition device? Now, during CeBIT in Hannover, Gigabyte Communications from Taiwan released the second Pocket PC Phone Edition, also equipped with analogue TV and FM radio.
The g-Smart i follows its forerunner, the g-Smart but unlike the g-Smart, the g-Smart i is a typical candybar Pocket PC, running Windows Mobile 5.0 with AKU 2, featuring a 2.1 megapixel camera, supporting triband GSM and GPRS class 10, W-LAN b and Bluetooth 1.2 and is powered by a Intel PXA272 Bulverde CPU with 416 MHz.

Samsung again breaks the storage limit in mobile phones by introducing the world's first mobile phone, the SGH-i310, equipped with a 8GB hard disk drive. With the large storage of 8GB, SGH-i310 will change the way people manage and use the mobile phone.

The i310 works as a perfect platform for users by combining a phone, a digital camera, and a MP3 player with its immense storage capacity. It enables users to carry around 2,000 songs (4MB/song) wherever they go.

BenQ Mobile, the new business division of the BenQ Corporation, presents at CeBIT 2006 in Hannover the new Windows Mobile 5.0 powered Pocket PC Phone Edition P51, the follower of the P50 which is a high-performance, versatile and compact Pocket PC Phone Edition based on the Windows Mobile 5.0 operating system that integrates the latest high-end technology.
With comprehensive modern business features, the BenQ-Siemens P51 is the ideal communication tool for the professional user. Whether on the plane, on the train platform or at a business meeting Ã¢â‚¬â€œ if you are on the road a great deal you will always have your office with you in the BenQ-Siemens P51.

During CeBIT 2006 in Hannover Germany, T-Mobile Germany first time publicly showed their latest Windows Mobile Pocket PC Phone Edition, the T-Mobile MDA Vario II.
As expected, the Vario II is based on the HTC Hermes and features quad-bang GSM, GPRS and EDGE as well as WCDMA/UMTS.
Addiitonaly it's sporting W-LAN b/g as well as Bluetooth 1.2. As the forerunner, the MDA Vario, the MDA Vario II will has a QWERTZ slide-out keyboard (for the German market). Enhanced is the camera which is a 2.1 megapixel one on the backside and a CIF on the frontside for UMTS video calls. The MDA Vario II will be powered by Windows Mobile 5.0 with (at least) AKU 2 supporting Bluetooth Stereo and Microsoft Push E-Mail via Exchange 2003 SP2.
Also it's confirmed now, that the wheel on the left side is a real scroll wheel with action functionality:

All right, another T-Mobile press release is confirming (more or less) that the T-Mobile MDA Vario II is the HTC Hermes: "For fast and easy input of URLs and E-Mails, the MDA Vario II offers a full keyboard as well as a 'trackwheel' for a comfortable navigation. Also it offers a large color-screen which can be also used in landscape. The color-screen also can be used as a view-finder for the 2.1 megapixel camera. As a PDA it also supports many organizer functions" (please note, this is my translation of the original German T-Mobile press release, unfortunately T-Mobile isn't offering this press release in English yet).
So no question, according this specifications the MDA Vario II is the earlier surfaced HTC Hermes and I'm sure T-Mobile will present it on its stand at CeBIT.

The HTC Hermes surfaced the first time publicly during 3GSM Congress in February but so far, no operators has publicly committed a launch of the device or a release date. Now it looks like T-Mobile will be the first one who will launch it, at least it looks like they have announced it today in its German press release. There, T-Mobile Germany, announced a new Windows Mobile device called "MDA Vario II" to be available early summer 2006! If you follow T-Mobile's naming scheme, the MDA Vario II must hava a keyboard (like the Vario I which is the HTC Wizard) and the only device I'm aware of which supports both, a keyboard and UMTS with HSDPA seems to be the HTC Hermes.

Samsung today announced to unveil its latest Windows Mobile Smartphone during CeBIT this week. As the name of the new device mentions, the SGH-i310 is the successor of the Samsung SGH-i300 Windows Mobile 2003 Second Edition Smartphone but this time it looks like Samsung did everything right. Beside the extended memory (8 GB HDD instead of 3 GB HDD only), the i310 is announced to use Windows Mobile 5.0 (instead of Windows Mobile 2003 SE).
Other features are 2 megapixel camera with flash, TV-output, audio support for MP3, WMA, AAC, stereo speakers, support for A2DP and AVRC Bluetooth profiles, USB 2.0 and microSD memory card storage. The press release isn't saying anything about the supported wireless standards but it can be expected, that the i310 will support at least GSM and GPRS, UMTS isn't expected yet.

Thanks to Mobis and Fawis (Germany) some weeks ago I got a Just Mobile docking station for the HTC Magician/Prophet but this docking station is way more than a place to connect your device to your PC or to charge it only but it's a media station which was specifically designed to expand and enhance your enjoyment of the music stored on your device.
The Docking Station is easy to use, just plug in the power, dock in your device and play. The inbuilt volume control let's you increases or decrease the volume without touching the device itself and since it includes active stereo speakers, you will get more out of your music than you will ever get from the inbuilt Pocket PC speakers which are good on the run but not for stationary use!

Spb Software House has released a new update for Spb Pocket Plus, the award winning application that was also the best selling Pocket PC program world-wide in 2004 and 2005.
Spb Pocket Plus version 3.1 performs better than the previous version and uses less memory. Now the user has the freedom to choose which particular features of Spb Pocket Plus he or she wants to have installed to the device. And the most exciting new feature of Spb Pocket Plus 3.1 is the improved appearance of the Today plug-in icons, giving the device today screen a beautiful new design.

i-mate yesterday released the long awaited AKU 2 ROM update for its K-Jam Windows Mobile 5.0 Pocket PC Phone Edition (aka HTC Wizard).
The new ROM includes the Microsoft Messaging and Security Feature Pack (MSFP) which provides Direct Push E-Mail, remote device wiping, security policy enforcement and Global Address List Lookup for customers using a Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 with Service Pack 2.
In addition the Communication Manager has been updated to allow current data services to be stopped, Direct Push E-mail to be started/stopped using a single button press and flight mode to be switched on/off.

As Opera announced today, the Norwegian browser specialist released Beta 2 of its Windows Mobile Pocket PC browser today.
Opera 8.5 Pocket PC beta version is based on the same core as the Opera 8.5 desktop browser and brings the full internet to mobile Pocket PCs.

Do you remember the mysterious Gigabyte Pocket PC Phone Edition I caught at the 3GSM Congress two weeks ago? Looks like it wasn't announced that official at all but will become Gigabyte's new star for the CeBIT as the Taiwanese company announced today in its latest press release.
At CeBIT 2006, Gigabyte is proudly presenting products from both its PDA phone and feature phone families. From the PDA phone family, g-Smart was the world's first PPC phone with Microsoft Windows Mobile 5.0 AKU2 as its operating system. g-Smart combined PDA and phone into one compact slide design and offers Direct Push and analog TV as well as Office tools, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi.

g-Smart i (the new one from the 3GSM Congress) is the second generation to g-Smart and is smaller and lighter with a pure PDA look for the all-PDA lovers.

E-TEN Information Systems today announced that its M600 Pocket PC Phone Edition now has the latest version of Skype 2.0 pre-installed on the device. Existing M600 users are invited to download Skype 2.0 from the link given below. E-TEN also confirmed that the company is scheduled to release an OS upgrade for the device soon and that Skype 2.0 will be one of the new features included in this package.

With built-in support for Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Quad-band GSM and GPRS, the M600 Pocket PC Phone delivers a complete communications package in one compact device. And with Skype 2.0 for the Pocket PC, these capabilities extend even further allowing users to share the same Skype account with their PCs and M600 and to enjoy free/low rate internet calls even while on the move.

Yesterday, Google announced the availability of Google News for mobile devices, further demonstrating Google's focus on making the mobile phone a more convenient and reliable device for accessing useful and relevant information while on the go. Whether waiting in the doctor's office, riding the train to work or standing in line at the local market, mobile phone users will now be able to search and read the latest headlines quickly and easily on their web-enabled mobile devices.

Google News offers quick headline updates, the ability to search current news and browse categories that enable quick and easy access to the news that matters most to individual users. To access Google News, users simply visit google.com on their mobile phone's web browser, and click the link to Google News. Users will then be directed to links and headlines for the top news stories.

If you plan to visit this year's CeBIT in Hanover, you might want to download the Mobile Fair Planner from the CeBIT fair which was released today. The Mobile Fair Planner is the free CeBIT 2006 electronic catalogue for your mobile device. All data about companies and events, hall and site plans as well as general information on CeBIT are available. The search function will help you to find the desired exhibitors.

The Fair Planner can now be downloaded for devices with Palm OS 3.3 or Windows CE 3.0, Pocket PC (or higher). Moreover this year the CeBIT also offers a JAVA ME version for Java-enabled mobile phones and Blackberry.